Summary: From the early 25th century, the I.K.S. B’Cnah is sent back to the year 2033 where they must stop Sayjan, a Na’kuhl time traveler from altering Xindi history.
Author’s notes: This was written in August 2014 as part of the Star Trek Online Forums Literary Challenge #66. It was my first attempt at breaking out into a different crew through STO’s playable Klingon faction.
Literary Challenge #66, Prompt #1: Starfleet Command has ordered your crew to undergo an unusual mission. A familiar figure from Starfleet’s past has appeared onboard your ship following a Priority One communication directly from Admiral Quinn… and Franklin Drake, a known Section 31 Operative. Your orders, to assist “Crewman Daniels” stop a direct threat to the timestream from an unknown enemy who, according to Daniels, plans to return to the Xindi homeworld in the year 2033 to stop the destruction of the Xindi Avian race. Your mission, travel back in time to stop this temporal incursion and maintain the timeline at all costs. In order to protect the future, you and your crew must allow the genocide of an entire race of the Xindi species to assure that history repeats itself, and to ensure that Starfleet doesn’t loose one of it’s most valuable allies in this new period of Xindi cooperation. Starfleet can not afford to loose the experimental technology the Xindi have supplied us in our new offensives against the looming threat of the Iconians. Upon arrival in 2033, your Com Officer reports an incoming hail from an Xindi Avian Escort, whose Captain has offered to their assistance in escorting you to their homeworld.
Literary Challenge #66
The Xindi Paradox
Captain Seifer walked hurriedly down one of his corridors on the Prometheus-class Starship Phoenix-X. A crewman named Daniels tried catching up with him.
“Sir! I need to speak with you?” Daniels called out.
Seifer turned slightly but didn’t lose stride. “Why don’t you talk to one of my Bridge officers? I’m a little busy right now.”
“It’s important,” Daniels affirmed.
The Captain turned a corner. “I’m sorry, Daniels. I’ve got my hands full—”
“It’s about the Suliban,” he started. “—Gah! I mean, the Xindi. I’m always getting those two mixed up. You ever notice how they’re similarly plot-device’d aliens?”
Seifer stopped. “Alright, fine. Though, I’m not going into your quarters.”
“But I’ve just poured us each a glass of Gamzian wine?”
The Captain held up his hands. “No! Ugh! You are just, just so awful. And the forehead. Excuse me a second.” He involuntarily leaned against the bulkhead, attempting to hold in a sudden sickness. “I’ll be fine. Just need to— hold it in. Okay.” He stood up. “Okay, let’s go to the Bridge.”
Later, the Phoenix-X approached a giant, blue-hazed rogue comet, which was moving slowly through space as it was being scanned by the Vor’cha-class IKS B’Cnah.
“This is Captain Menchez of the B’Cnah! Don’t you dare touch this space object. It is ours! We were going to put a flag in it, but our replicators are busy with our daily gagh manufacturing,” the Klingon yelled out.
Seifer peered at the view screen. “Fascinating. This thing is exactly like Driffen’s comet, only, not-destroyed.”
“Obviously, it came from the same source! What is taking you so long to come to the appropriate conclusions??” Menchez argued.
The Captain furrowed his brow. “I just got here. Give me a second to process things and such and so on.”
“Klingons do not give seconds!”
Seifer looked confused. “I’m not— I don’t know what that means. Anyway, we’re here because a Na’Kuhl man named Sayjan will be traveling back in time to prevent the Federation from forming. The fact we’re from there is just a coincidence.”
“Except that if he’s changed the timeline, it makes no sense that you are still here!”
Crossing his arms, Seifer replied. “He hasn’t changed it yet. But, by manipulating the triolic energy of this asteroid, we’ll be able to jump back to a time in the past of which contains a future that he does.”
“That sounds unnecessarily complicated? However, I just cannot allow my battle record with Starfleet ships to be erased from any alternate timelines, so please, proceed,” Menchez offered before blinking off screen.
The Phoenix-X fired a selective molecular polarization beam from its deflector dish into the comet. Realizing the haste in his actions, Captain Seifer snapped his fingers. “Dang! I forgot to tell Menchez to get out of the way.”
Suddenly, the B’Cnah was enveloped by triolic energy and sent back in time to the early 21st century, in the Xindi system.
“QI’yaH!! We are not to be in this time-frame!” the Klingon Captain cursed.
Derok glanced over. “We should have never trusted the Federation!!! Uggghh!!!”
“What? That is completely irrational. Clearly, they did not intend to send us here. You need to calm down, Derok. Your attitude is unbecoming and a little discreditable.”
Stopping, Derok replied, “Sorry, Captain.”
“bIjatlh ‘e’ yImev! There is a Xindi ship approaching off the port bow!! THEY ARE HAILING!!!” Ulkegh reported from tactical.
Menchez nodded. “Very well. Just please stop yelling, everyone! It is characteristic, yes, but mostly annoying.”
“Greetings,” the Xindi-Avian commanding officer opened. “Welcome to our home system. We are in a state of war right now, but would take great pleasure in escorting you to come visit our non-war areas. We have two: One is an Avian koi pond at my mother’s, and the other is an Avian bowling alley on 47th Street.”
Ch’Tong, at helm, scratched his Klingon-goatee. “How would the latter even work? Perhaps, this is worth some investigation.”
“yIDoghQo’! The real question is how do the Avians have starship technology when history records they could not even leave their planet???” Menchez slammed his fist into the arm of his chair.
The Xindi-Avian nodded. “Indeed. This vessel is actually our first one ever. Yay, us! We should be using it to defend ourselves on-world, but every time any one of us Captain’s it, we just cannot turn down the call of freedom and are compelled to soar blissfully throughout our single planet solar system. Surely, our inescapable deviation could not result in real life consequences?”
Suddenly, a Xindi-Reptilian snuck up behind him and decapitated the Avian. On screen, more Xindi-Reptilians broke onto the Bridge and killed the Avian crew.
Ch’Tong crossed his arms. “It is their spiritual nature that has been their demise.”
“Ha! Now we shall use this vessel to detonate all the explosives we placed under our world’s largest seismic fissures!” exclaimed the Xindi-Reptilian with glee. “Did you guys remember to bring the holo-imaging camera? I want to update my Risa profile page with it.”
His second in command shook his head. “Sorry, sir. The cameras were all destroyed when the Xindi-Aquatics hit us with that giant tsunami. We were wringing our uniforms for weeks!”
“Rings. I like the sound of that. Let’s update our uniforms to include ring-like shoulder pads. They’ll loop around, right over our shoulders, unlike the Klingons’ flat, unimagined pads of boredom.”
His second in command saluted right away. “Excellent idea, sir!”
“Speaking of Klingons, I suppose you want to destroy us now, Klingon vessel?” the Xindi-Reptilian turned to acknowledge the B’Cnah’s presence.
Menchez held up his hand. “No! You must do what you must do. Not to mention, that decapitation was excellently done, dishonorable as it was.”
“Why, thank you. It’s quite easy, because their necks are so thin. I’ve done so much head-chopping in my time, I sometimes wonder what it is like.”
The Klingon Captain tilted his head in confusion. “That’s an odd thing to say so arbitrarily.”
Suddenly, the Na’Kuhl agent, Sayjan popped up behind the Reptilian and attempted to decapitate him, but only succeeded in slitting his throat.
“Dammit! How do they do it??” Sayjan cursed as the Reptilian hit the floor.
Menchez then relaxed. “Oh, that’s why.” Then stood up. “You fool! Killing them is tampering with the timeline!!”
“Yes, I know.” Sayjan then shot down the other Reptilians on the Bridge. “As a time-traveler, tampering with the timeline is my purpose. How would you feel if you couldn’t yell-talk anymore? Yeah. Not a pleasant thought, is it?” He turned to work on the control panels. “Anyway, I’m now sabotaging the communications on the planet, in an effort to stop the explosives from detonating, thus saving everyone’s lives. After this, I plan to manipulate all the Xindi-species into a lasting peace with each other! Hahaha!!!”
The Captain clenched his fist. “You monster! The Xindi will then develop a functional, non-bickering-type council that succeeds in their efforts in destroying the Federation through mutual cooperation and perfect unity!”
“I know. Isn’t it so obvious that that’s what’s going to happen? It’s suuuuch a sure thing.”
Menchez pointed to Ulkegh. “Transport him directly into the Brig!!”
“But, I thought we weren’t to be yelling, sir?” Ulkegh was confused.
He waved his hand. “Forget those orders!”
“Qapla’!” she exclaimed as she initiated the transport. Moments later, her console beeped. “Captain Menchez, the remaining Reptilians on the ship have initiated self-destruct.”
Menchez gestured. “That is horrible timing! Hail the new lead Reptilian!”
“Huh?” A view of a Reptilian in Engineering blinked on. “Oh, is that alien gone? Well, what do you expect from us? We are on the lower decks. All our Bridge-news has a 30-second delay! Also, we were working on those new shoulder rings. They look sooooo good.”
The B’Cnah started to back off, but the Xindi-Avian cruiser exploded and knocked several key systems on the Klingon vessel offline: Most notably, the weapons systems. The shuttle bay endured a massive breech, blowing several irreparable shuttles out into space.
“Uggh!!! This is all that Na’Kuhl’s fault!” Menchez irked. “Derok, ensure he is flogged appropriately!”
Derok scratched his head. “Do Klingons do that?”
“I don’t know. Yes, perhaps,” Menchez tried to recall. “We do need to maintain a certain level of barbarism, anyway.”
Derok saluted. “Yes sir!”
“Ch’Tong, take us to the planet. We must repair whatever un-damage they’ve done.”
The B’Cnah then warped for the planet Xindus. Upon entry into orbit, the crew began scans.
“Captain, it appears only a few of the seismic fissure-explosives have gone off,” Ulkegh explained. “According to reports, the remaining explosives are only a few days away from detonating, due to earthquakes, but the Avians are confident they can disassemble them before that.”
Menchez slammed both his fists into his chair. “Hu’tegh! Can we detonate them remotely ourselves??”
“Not possible,” Tayana, the engineer approached. “Sayjan’s half-way sabotage was successful in disabling those devices’ communications. Classic plot-block.”
The Captain got up, looked around for his cup of raktagino, picked it up and then threw it at a lowly Bekk.
“Aahh!” screamed Bekk Rinn in fear.
Menchez turned. “Unacceptable!! We will take our last Toron-class shuttle down and deal with the situation ourselves!”
“But, Captain,” Ulkegh interrupted. “The weapons on the I.K.S. Hex are inoperable??”
Ch’Tong spat. “Another setback? We should just let everything be, repair our systems, and head back to the still-open triolic time portal! It will be enough. The Empire will die a horrible, bloody death fighting the Dominion alone, but we’ll have had some good Klingon-jollies along the way.”
“Perhaps,” Menchez started. “But we must honor the intents of this mission, even if it wasn’t ours to begin with. Destiny has put us in this place for a reason and it is sorely obvious that a Starfleet crew could never do what we can and must now do.”
Half an hour later, the Hex was landed on the surface, and the Bridge officers from the B’Cnah were already busy slaughtering surrounding Xindi-Avians, using bat’leths, mek’leths and tajtiqs of all kinds.
“AaaaaHHHH!!!!” an Avian screamed as its head was neatly sliced off by Tayana.
Ch’Tong hacked his bat’leth into a flood of oncoming Avians, one after the other, and another. “Captain! Must we continue doing this?? My arms are getting tired!”
“Wwwwhhhhhyyyyy?????” another Avian called out, attempting to slap with its wings, but instead being gutted by Menchez’s tajtiq. “My insidessss!!??”
Menchez whipped the remaining blood off his weapon. “Do not waver! That is an order and plea for honor.” He then surveyed his surroundings of death all around. “Captain Seifer is going to owe me for this. Him and his precious little timeline!”
Another Avian ran for Menchez, to which he sliced right into. Blood flying everywhere. His dulling blade ensuring maintained continuity.